Snowflakes
by Jay Puma
Summary: As the fifteenth birthday of Silver the Hedgehog nears, nightmares from his past haunt him, threatening to push him where he will lose everything he holds dear... R
1. Nearly Fifteen Years Ago

_ Snowflakes gently float to the ground. Besides them, everything is still. It's very quiet._

_ A tiny white snowflake shoots up a tiny black nose, barely half an hour old. The little baby sneezes and wakes up in the cold place. He can't see yet. It's cold, very quiet. Mama and Dada aren't nearby; he can't sense anything because everything is still._

_ Snowflakes turn red when they land on Mama's glass-embedded forehead. Her face is pale, still and full of fear. Her body is broken around a pole._

_ Dada's head has a dent in it from the steering wheel. He's as quiet and still as the car crumpled around the hard object._

_ The baby stays silent, since there's nothing wrong. Mama and Dada are probably sleeping in their room. Nothing's wrong. He lets out a little yawn, and drifts off to sleep as a blanket of snowflakes cover him._


	2. A Flash

Silver the Hedgehog picked up a piece of sushi from his basket and ate it as he sat on the bench. He swayed his head with closed eyes and a closed smile as he finished it off. _Warm-water sushi is delicious! Are all the seafood dishes here as yummy as this?_

The eager hedgehog had just swallowed the last piece when Venice the Hedgehog strolled along holding some dumplings on sticks. "I see you like warm-water sushi," he said, then took a bite out of the right dumpling. "Well," he said through the mouthful,-"you haven't had _everything. _This, for example,"- he held out the other dumpling. It was covered in all sorts of sauces and toppings. "I got the works for you. Try 'em."

Silver took the dumpling skeptically. "Oh, come on, buddy, dumplings aren't that bad! Just eat it." After a few moments he bit into it. Tangy, crunchy and "not bad, I guess," he admitted. "I think the soy sauce overdoes it, though."

"Whatever, man," Venice said as he plopped down on the bench, downing the rest of his dumpling. "I love Hydro City Festivals. The food's awesome and I can beat you at all the games here," he said. A Hydro City Festival was like a Renaissance Festival for Selstice City residents. Hydrokinetics would set up shops, games and shows for their neighbors and everyone, especially Venice, a hydro himself, had a great time. December 1st was the last day for the fest, and the sun had already set.

"All right, bro, we're going, just after I check out the cheesecake tent," Venice said, darting off like his ancestor to the stand. Silver just sat on the bench near the exit patiently and glanced around curiously. He had about thirty dollars left to burn from the other visits so-

He froze up when he saw something, or someone he didn't think he knew. There was a flash of long platinum-white hair that triggered the déjà vu. White hair and fur...? What did it…?

A bottle shattered from somewhere far away, and he could hear a woman crying, and then a baby- _A_ _baby? Why would I hear a-_

"Yo, Silv!" Venice snapped the hedgehog out of the daydream, and there was no white-haired Mobian in sight. Venice had cheesecake bits all over him.

"What happened to you?" he asked as he stood up.

"Dude-dude-dude, I was standing at the entrance, basking in the scent of the tent, when something rams into me and I open my eyes,"-Venice loved pausing for dramatic effect, but Silver tapped his foot, "and there was this cute blonde chick on top of me!" He whispered, "We almost _kissed."_

Silver growled and walked away from him. "Here I thought you got into a fight." The elder hog turned him around and fixed the hedgehog to face him.

His eyes were wide with awe as he whispered, "Her name is _Sicily. _She's a cat, but her tail's bushy like a fox, _dude, _this is a match made in Hybrid-Heaven!"

"Why are hybrids separate from everyone else?" he wondered. "And cats tend to be pyros, Ven."

"The game of life's no fun if there aren't hurdles to jump, my friend." Silver gave an unimpressed stare for a minute and then the hedgehog-mink hybrid sighed. "All right, all right, let's go home before Mom freaks out."

Venice and Silver were brothers roughly a year apart. They could've been twins, if Silver had sky blue eyes with black skin around the bottom of his eyes and an orange curly, thin-haired mane instead of a thick-haired white one. Their parents were Florence and Vienna, and they all lived in a quaint two-story house in the suburb within walking distance of the city. Dad was a half-mink half-hedgehog with fiery orange fur, and due to his hydrokinesis, a great swimmer. He was a great dad to the two boys, always rubbing their hair and calling them "sport," "squirt," and "kid." Dad had three quills arranged like that of Sonic's, and a tail with mink fur.

Mom was a gray, ordinary hedgehog with green eyes, the nice kind of stay-at-home moms you'd expect and more. She loved both Venice and Silver equally, like Dad, but because Venice was on the swim team, Mom was more Silver's parent. She was nosy in a good way, and always made sure there weren't any problems unsolved between anyone.

_I'm lucky, _Silver thought as he walked up the steps to the porch, _to have such a nice family._

"Welcome home, boys!" Mom called, finishing unloading the dishwasher. "Did you two have fun?"

"Venice fell in love," Silver groaned, then proceeding into a mock Venice voice, _"Ohhhh, she's so bea-ewwww-tiefulll, Silver…" _

The elder put the younger in a headlock and noogie'd him, "I don't sound like that, Silver!"

"Be gentle!" he protested, "Hurt me and I'll bite you!"

"Break it up," Mom commanded, and they stood at attention immediately. "Now, go brush your teeth and go to bed."

"'Night, Mom," Venice yawned with a wave.

"Goodnight, Mom," Silver echoed as he walked down the hall into his room. He pulled off his boots and crawled into bed. _Nice warm bed…_

Suddenly, he felt very cold, and couldn't hear a thing, but after he shook his head it went away. Just a chill. He soon fell asleep without a worry in the world.


	3. The Beginning of the End

"_Oh, I'm so sorry," a woman whispered, "I woke you up, huh?" She kissed the baby, who giggled and hummed forgiveness. "Oh, you're so cuuute, you little baby, so fluffy and soft like your mom and dad… daddy's big ears and white fluff. And what _beautiful _silvery pale fur!"_

"_Yes, he certainly has that," an old, mechanical voice agreed. "Oh, wow; his energy signature's even more powerful than his mother's!"_

Silver woke up, blinking into focus. It was dark in his room, and the orangey rays peeking from the blinds whispered, "Good morning."

"More powerful…" he echoed. What was that about? Who was the baby-

"Silvery…" he mumbled as he sat up. "White fluff." Was it him? No, no, couldn't be; the baby's father had big ears and white fluff, Florence had a wispy yellow-orange mane and his ears were average size.

"Just a dream," he grumbled, going back to sleep.

* * *

"_What is it?" the mechanical voice asked from afar._

"_It's about…Silver," a new, dark voice replied._

Silver sat up immediately, pupils the size of pen nibs. What? B-but-but—Mom and Dad! Did-did-did—

"Silver!" Mom called from the kitchen. "Wake up, honey! Breakfast!"

Just a bad dream; forget it! The hog walked into the hallway, greeted by his mother's smile as he sat down at the island next to Venice and Dad. "Good morning, Silver. Did you sleep well?"

"Oh… no, not really," he said, "but I'm fine. I think I ate a bad fish or something. I was having weird dreams."

Mom and Dad stiffened a bit, for just a moment, but after exchanging a glance shook themselves out of it. "Yeah, probably a bad fish, Silver," she echoed. "Be sure to drink all your milk, okay?"

"You saw that, right?" Venice wisped. "What's that all about?"

"Maybe they think it's worsening," Silver replied before the gray hedgehog passed down his chocolate milk and pancakes. Mom had put a sun-yellow pill on the plate for him to swallow. Apparently the young hog had a chemical imbalance that made him dysthymic, even though neither side had family history of depression. Everyone shared concerns: A psychic hedgehog suffering from depression? Wouldn't medications affect his abilities?

"When's your next appointment, anyway?" his brother wondered before gulping down some coffee.

"Day after tomorrow," he mumbled, picking up the capsule and downing it with milk. "But they were just dreams, weird voices."

"Sounds crazy, man. Are you sure it's not some sort of…I dunno, _sign?"_

_I really hope not, _Silver prayed as he bit into his pancake. He really wasn't asking for one, and, anyway, what'd it have to do with him? So what, maybe there was another Mobian with the same name as him. And the baby from the first one- Well, maybe it was Silver Jr. for all he knew!

* * *

In the afternoon, Silver just found Mom and started, since his birthday was just two weeks away, and he loved history, "Hey, Mom… Could you tell me about my birthday?"

"What do you mean?" Her face wasn't just confused; it was concerned, as if the conversation had started with "Can I have a tattoo?"

"Like… when I was born. What was it like?"

She sighed, sounding…relieved. "Oh, it was almost like when Venice was born, only we weren't in Soleanna and we were extra-cautious. My doctor had warned me about having children, that I couldn't possibly be able to have another. But, I got pregnant with you, dear Silver, and I just couldn't bear the thought of aborting you.

"So, when my water broke, your father quickly called for an ambulance since he was too scared of trying to transport us without a professional. Your brother kept saying 'Baby! Baby! Baby brother!' since he was just one, so excited that you were coming. Then when the paramedics came I started to have contractions so they decided to make it a home-birth. It took a while for them to set up a sterile area for the birth, and your father had to put Venice into a crib.

"Minutes later, you came out, a sticky, furry little thing, and we thought the only reason you were so shiny was because you were wet, but it turned out you were just the prettiest silver hedgehog we'd ever seen. So we named you that."

Why the lack of detail? Venice's birth had been a "frantic hustle to get the message across the cultural wall with Dad's mouth gibbering off in Italian as if Venice was a time bomb ticking away," so why should the second child get the short end of the stick?

Silver grumbled, looking down at a knitted sweater-

Suddenly, he was somewhere else, and he had slender pale gray-_not _silver- feminine hands, and he was holding a hook, a crochet hook, as he was making a circular potholder.

"I find crochet much easier than knitting," he said, but his voice was soft and- "I mean, there's only one hook, and you don't have to keep track of all those loops!"

"What are you talking about, Silver?" Vienna wondered, and the hog was a hog once more, sitting with crossed ankles and making crochet motions. He immediately grabbed his seat and braced for an earthquake. _"I _don't even _do _needle crafts or whatever it is you're going on about."

Now he went pale, and grabbed his head as if shaking it and saying "no, no, no, no!" over and over again. Whoever it was he'd just spontaneously turned into wasn't Vienna, and that left only one possible answer. But there was just no way—except that it was the only way it made sense.

They'd lied to him.


	4. The Voice

_12-3-07_

_ I've been having these odd, psychometric flashes. They must be from my mother, but… there are some that are _mine. _I can feel it. The problem is... these flashes aren't Mom's memories, unless Mom isn't really my mother. I really don't want to come to that yet._

_ It's just—this whole time they've been lying to me. Why didn't they just tell me? Were they ever planning to? If they were, how come they didn't?_

_ I don't think Venice knows either… I mean, he's always called me brother, and there's barely more than a year's difference between us. Vienna and Florence must've had me before I was able to talk or walk, since most of my memories are dark, or fuzzy. _

_ In my memories, there are three distinguishable voices. There's one woman, with a soft voice. She talks to me often. Then there's a metallic, mechanical voice. He's a little technical but kind._

_ The rarest of the voices is a dark one. He calls me by my name the most. I feel a strong connection with him. I don't know why but, I do._

"I see…" the therapist said after glancing over this journal entry twice. "Do you think that this Mobian is your father?"

"My father?" Silver echoed. The two sat across from each other in Dr. Librium's office. The other three were outside, out of ear shot.

"Why would it be my father?"

"Psychics have deep connections with their family members," he went on, "so any connection you're feeling with the voice is probably your father. He might even be a psychic himself."

"But… if that's true, then…"

"I understand, Silver. This must be a shock to you."

"Why wouldn't they just tell me the truth?"

"There are many reasons why, Silver. Would you like me to bring Vienna and Florence in now?" Silver blinked, his throat feeling stuck. The therapist led the parents in anyway, explaining as the youngest whimpered and wept. Vienna reached out to stroke him but retracted her hand once the doctor explained what Silver was dreaming about.

"Silver…" Florence trailed off, not knowing how to go on. Vienna had started to cry as well. "Silver… we, we just wanted you to be happy…"

"Ha-happy?" he choked. "How am I supposed to be happy when you're not even— _Why?!"_

"Silver, listen, listen to me, okay?" He took a deep breath before he started.

* * *

Florence and Vienna were walking in the park not too far from the house, baby Venice snuggled in his stroller. It was early spring, all the snow melted away, and there was kids running around happily.

Vienna's gray ears had twitched when she heard a baby crying; mother instinct or something like that. She stopped the stroller and scanned around for the source. It was around a tree far from the path. Florence went to inspect it.

In a small little box was an even smaller baby hedgehog, wrapped up. He had beautiful pale silvery fur, and a mane white as snow. The orange hybrid scooped up the bundle and bounced him in his arms. The baby quieted down.

Around his neck was a small piece of paper attached to a black thread. It was a phone number. "Hey, Vienna," he said, cradling the boy as he ran over to her. He passed the baby to his wife as he dialed the number on his cell phone.

"What a pretty baby," she cooed. "All alone? Where's—"

The other end finally picked up, with a dark "Hello?"

"Um, hello," Florence said, "Uh… I found a baby in Woodlands Park, with this phone number, is it—"

The man had pulled away, whispering to someone, but he interrupted the mink. "You found Silver?" he said. "Oh, that's good… I was worried no- Look, could… could you take him for me?"

"What?"

"Please. He…He need someone, a real family, one that… has a mom and dad, maybe some siblings. I don't want him growing up with…" he sounded like he was crying. "Please… would you…"

"Vienna," he said to his love, "he wants us to take him as our own."

"Do you think he's the father?" she whispered.

"Must be, or an uncle. I think he's worried about his welfare or him growing up right, Vienna."

"We…we just can't take someone's…" she started to cry a little; she was unable to have another child without the threat of death to both mother and child, and the thought of the lucky ones who thought of giving life to something was painful and a burden was just…

"Vienna, honey… this baby's father maybe in trouble with some bad people, or maybe, maybe he has some sort of mental problem and he just doesn't want to damage this kid—Vienna, I know what you're feeling, but _please trust me _on this."

She locked her shining emerald eyes with her husband's, and nodded slowly. Florence went to the phone again. "Yes. We'll take him."

The voice seemed happier, and he started to tell them about Silver: his birthday, his Social Security number and then about his favorite things, what scared him, what made him laugh…

That was when Florence was certain, because of the way he said these things, that the voice on the phone was his father, and that he truly loved Silver.

* * *

"Then why…why would he just, give me away?"

"I don't know, Silver," Florence said, blinking away tears. "I don't know why. I… I never called him back, and I threw away the number, because then we'd gotten custody over you then, you were ours and-"

"You never heard from anyone?"

"No, Silver, no, never again. I even tried to call back, the phone company told me the number no longer existed, or that the phone was destroyed… Silver… we just wanted to…"

"Why would they just-" The hedgehog started to cry again, unable to piece together a reason. Why… why would… didn't they know he was… he was a rare… a rare one-in-a-billion psychokinetic hedgehog… that-that he'd be… be a time-traveler and a hero? Why would they disown him like that? Why? He cupped his hands to hold his bowed head.

"Silver," Dr. Librium tried to get him to calm down. "Silver… Sometimes families become too dangerous for someone like you to be a part of. No matter how much it hurts, they try to put the child's needs first."

"I…I…" he swallowed. "I... I want a blood test." His hands were shaking and his eyes were fixed on a pattern in the carpet. "I want to know who my parents are- Where can I get one?"

"Silver, let's not be too rash-"

Silver's red rimmed eyes were ablaze. His lips were in a snarl. His heart felt missing, something that held up was gone now, he needed the right piece. The only way to find this piece was to find…

"Where can I get a blood test," he growled. Vienna tried to touch him again and he leaned away from her. "Where?"

"Silver. Look, I'll see what I can find for you," the doctor promised. "Just please calm down. Many people go looking for their biological families, regretting it, because that ideal relative is nonexistent. Please, Silver. A family is not defined by bloodlines."

Venice had no idea why his little brother had red-rimmed eyes that looked angry or why Mom was sobbing and Dad was just crying quietly alongside her. Of all the times where Silver had walked in, cried, and came out, he never looked worse than when he went in. Silver drifted away towards the bathrooms as his father met eyes with him.

"What happened?" he wondered.

"It's…it's about Silver," the orange one replied. "Something we…something we never told either of you."


	5. Run Away

Silver was so shaken. Not only had his whole life been one whole lie… his own father had given him away, probably leaving him in that box in the park in the park for someone, _anyone _to find. He could've just- just been picked up by—by just _anyone!_

Why… why would he do that? It just wasn't right- why?

He found out that the best place to find something that would lead him to his parents was a kiosk that could print out a series of codes. The codes could be given to a geneticist, and they could find out who the parents were. He'd need some money for the geneticist, maybe ten dollars for the kiosk.

He went to an ATM to withdraw the whole of his college funds: fifteen thousand dollars in cash. The majority of the money was given for saving the world on numerous occasions. To be honest, Silver had no plans on going to college: he wanted to go to the temples where the psychics lived and trained.

But that was when he was Florence and Vienna's son. Now he just had a burning desire to find out who his real parents were and why they gave him up. Taking the money from the machine he undid his backpack to stuff the money in a secure packet inside.

He'd taken his backpack and a few other things, like his medications. By the time everyone woke up, he'd have a different appearance and new clothes that they'd never bought for him. He'd taken out all his other clothes and hidden them away so there was no telling what he'd be wearing.

In the department store on the far side of town, he bought a leather jacket and a pair of heavy-duty black boots, nothing like his teal-toed boots. He bought color contacts from a stand in the mall, and got a haircut. Aviator sunglasses and fingerless leather gloves.

After debating over it for five minutes, he paid to get a tattoo on his right hip. They couldn't give him strong enough anesthetics. He stood still, wincing. The thing took half an hour, but when he saw the finished product, it was worth a hundred dollars.

The elemental symbols of silver and mercury were combined in thick black ink. Silver was in pain every time he walked, but the tattoo, visible due to how short the coat hung, would ward off any suspicious police officers, if his entire outfit wasn't the complete opposite of a sweet looking kid with bright amber eyes.

He was now a menacing looking punk with smoky gray eyes. He looked like he could rob a bank. He started to come up with a fake name for himself, and who cared for last names anyway?

* * *

So far, his face had only popped up a few times on the electronic billboards, but no one had outwardly noticed that the darkly dressed hedgehog was Silver.

_My name is _Mercury now, he insisted. He really needed to get his act together if he wanted to last long enough to find his parents.

He made it into Planned Parenthood without a problem. The kiosk would give the code for ten dollars, so he gave it and his blood. It printed out the GCAT coding on a small receipt. The code was very small, nearly microscopic. A single letter was as small as a dot made by a pen. And even if he blew up the paper, there was no way he'd be able to find out who his parents were from this four letter code that was only instructions on making proteins for a silver psychokinetic hedgehog with yellow eyes.

He slipped the receipt into a pocket on the inside of his coat and walked off. With fourteen thousand seven hundred and eighty dollars left, he wondered where he could go to stay. Somewhere cheap, since a DNA coding geneticist could charge anywhere from three to ten thousand, and a hotel room for who knows how long it was going to take to find his parents.

Well, Mercury remembered that Silver used to do community service at a children's shelter on the far side of town. A place like that wouldn't ask who you were or what happened unless you were very, very young, so it would work just fine.

It was about ten, and the shelter was just about to shut its doors on him. He started to pick a fight with the two closing shop when someone he'd seen working there came to break it up.

"Hey, kid, simmer down," he said. "If you wanna stay here, you gotta be nice, all right? Some of these kids have been through absolute _hell. _So no snatching or fighting, get me, Scruffy?"

"My name's _Mercury," _he spat, trying not to quake when Silver felt the nasty taste in his mouth. "And what kind of b#%!$*"- did he actually _say that?-_"steals and beats up kids that can't get a decent meal once and awhile?" He strolled in after the man nodded and walked him down the hallways.

* * *

The room wasn't as bad as it was crowded. None of the boys his age were up, all of them bearing bruises and band aids. They looked like this was the only good night's sleep they'd gotten in…

He didn't waste time once he found a place big enough for the sleeping bag the Mobian had provided. Once he wiggled into the bag, his hip still burning from the tattoo, he tried to let himself relax. The contacts were okay to sleep in so there was no risk of waking up to someone who remembered his eyes.

He wondered if, maybe, his mom had been one of those sad cases of a pregnant girl that nobody wanted to be associated with, and as such he was the kid nobody wanted, dumped on the father's doorstep only to be dumped in the park with a phone number to be picked up by…

Man… this place was nothing like his room at the Hedgehog residence… warm, soft bed…

* * *

_Cold… cold, cold everywhere… why is it so cold… where's-where's my mother… where's my father… _

_Why is… where… so-so-so…_

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Waaahhh! Wah-wah…waaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"


	6. One Sixteenth

Baby Silver cried in the snow, uncomfortable, hungry and frightened. He cried, and then he died down when no one came. Not mama or dada, nobody. So he whimpered, and then fell asleep.

Silver could still hear the wailing… but it wasn't a baby's. It was an adult, or at least, someone past puberty. Bawling like a child, screaming no, and crying once more.

The voice sounded like… like his "father" or whoever the voice he felt that strong connection with.

* * *

He blinked awake, half-expecting to be back at the Hedgehog's in his bedroom. But he was too exhausted to show a look of surprise when he saw the room filled with boys his age, sleeping close together, and he guessed brothers squeezed into the beds. A sharp pain pierced his side, and he tried to remember why he was here, wearing a leather jacket and why he wasn't wearing his gloves…

The tattoo. The haircut. The boots. The sunglasses.

Mercury.

He _had _ran away. Had gotten a tattoo. Had gone to Planned Parenthood. Had gotten a receipt with his DNA on it.

He had _cursed. _

What was he _doing? _What had made him even-

Some part of his mind cut him off. _You're going to find your _real _parents, stupid. _There was a nasty feeling with this part of him. He felt bullied by the voice, felt a sucker punch to his gut, as if when the voice said stupid, it had punched him.

Initially it gave the hog shivers, but when he remembered the events preceding the runaway, his determination was rekindled. His _real _parents. The ones who gave him silver fur, amber eyes, peach skin, big ears and that rare, once-in-a-billion-years power.

And why they gave him away to be fed a _lie _for nearly fifteen years.

But was it really worth hurting Florence, Vienna and Venice?

_Yes, you _idiot. _They _lied _to you. Remember the night before?_

A sense of normalcy. That had been the reason for the lie. As if normalcy could be found in a family of hydro-hybrids giving birth to a psychokinetic pure-bred. That had been the center of the spat at the dinner table between a broken-hearted Vienna, a thrown off Venice, a torn Florence and a frustrated Silver.

"Silver, please-"

"It just _doesn't make sense!" _Silver screeched. _"Why would he give me away like that- he KNEW what I was and he just GAVE ME AWAY?!"_

"Please, calm down," Vienna pleaded, tears streaming down her face.

"You've been lying to me for _fourteen years!" _the hog hissed at Florence. "So why should I believe you?"

The insults hardened and sank in his stomach, a dead weight inside Silver, who shifted his gaze downward. He didn't mean-

_Yes you did._

That was so hurtful-

_What does it matter?_

Vienna's wet face haunted his shut eyelids-

_ENOUGH, you stupid little _baby! You are _going to find your parents. _Your real _parents, and that's _FINAL.

The rock started to freeze over.

* * *

A geneticist was easy to find in comparison to a shelter that wouldn't recognize Silver. Most geneticists were used to a lobby with a minor with a wad of cash in their pocket looking for their biological parents. The geneticist Mercury handed the receipt to was told harshly not to dig deeper than he needed to in order to determine his birth parents.

"I've done this before, kid," he said gruffly. "Don't worry. Cilent-privilege is very important to my business." The five thousand dollar process took about twenty minutes to wait for, and it seemed like a lifetime. A quarter of the battle was about to be won.

"Well, I've got good and bad news: I found your mom, though. And then there's a bit more of bad news with that…

"Your mother's been dead for almost as long as you've been alive."

Make that an eighth._ "What?" _

"Yeah. And I remember that day, too. Girl about seventeen years old, who disappeared for a _year _only to be found with her spine bent around a lamp post. Clearly a car accident, but no car at the scene. When they autopsied her, they found signs of a birth about half an hour old. Freaky huh?"

"What was her name?"

"Ms. Selene Luminia Phoenicia," the geneticist said, handing another receipt to the hog. "Pale-gray fur, big dark blue eyes, white skin, two quills, and a very powerful psychic. If she isn't your mother, _nobody _is."

"What about my dad? Is he still alive?"

He sighed, "I was getting to that, and this is really getting a bit odd. I checked every DNA database I had access to and I couldn't find him."

One sixteenth. _"What? _Couldn't find him? Like-like he doesn't even _exist?"_

"He doesn't exist as far as DNA records go."

Mercury wanted to scream, _"My mother is not the f&*#^ Virgin Mary!" _at the Mobian, but that would do him no good.

"But you've got _something _to go on," he assured. "Your mom couldn't have disappeared off the face of the earth when you were conceived. She lived and died in this very _city _for crying out loud. She didn't _leave, _she just vanished. If she was traveling outside of this place, the cops would've known and she wouldn't have been missing for ten months.

"Your dad _has _to be here," he said. The geneticist promised he'd keep looking for Silver's dad with no additional fees, and for that, the young hog was grateful. He left with a little hop in his step, a little hopeful-

_"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"_

He grabbed his head, wincing. The screaming, it just wouldn't stop, and he felt like his mind was breaking apart. He fell to his knees-

_I HATE THEM I HATE THEM I HATE THEM I HATE THEMMMM!_

That voice-!

His head was hot with rage as he felt his heart splinter and his brain shattering like glass. _How dare Dad say that to me! _he thought, livid at someone, someone who'd torn up an invitation to meet the one who'd saved him from killing himself the night before his birthday-

His birthday wasn't the 22nd though, it was the 16th.

Oh! My mother! This is _her _memory! He tried to hang on to the memory, tried to search to see if he could find his-

_KILL ME NOW KILL ME NOW KILL ME NOW KILL ME NOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!_

In a flash of draining energy, it left. Silver tried to get up and get it back, but it was gone. He wondered if the memory was before or after...

Must've been before, if "Dad" was his mother's father and thusly meaning she hadn't run away yet.

Then it clicked. Mom must've run off and met his father! Or, or she already met his father, tried to introduce him to her parents and her father refused, so she ran off with his father.

Silver prayed that the latter was the case. Maybe he could find his dad if his mother's family had seen him before…

* * *

"Sorry, Mr. Hedgehog," the operator for the Missing Children department said over the phone, "we've been looking all over for your son, and we haven't gotten any other phone calls."

"Oh… I see," Florence agreed, drooping his ears. "I'm so sorry I keep bothering you, Miss Prower- it's just that my wife is anxious for news on him-well, we _all _are."

"I understand, sir. Just to be clear, you last saw him the night of December 3rd, correct?"

"Yeah, going to his room…"

"What was his emotional state?"

The hedgehog-mink gave a heavy sigh. "The third, he found out my wife and I weren't his biological parents, and he was probably confused, definitely upset at the news."

"So how did Silver end up in your custody?"

"We found him in the park with a phone number on a piece of paper. I called the number and asked if it was their baby, and the man on the phone asked me to take him as my own. I haven't heard from this man since, and I don't have the phone number anymore."

"I see… Well, Mr. Hedgehog, we're doing everything we can. Do you have any idea where Silver may be going?"

"He's going to find his real parents," he said, knowing the hog wouldn't stop come Hell or high water, he was so, so stubborn and naïve… After he ended the call he slumped on the couch burying his head in his hands. Vienna was in bed either asleep or crying, and Florence could hear his Venny thrashing about his bed, whimpering. The orange hedge-mink wouldn't go to bed just yet.

Florence began to remember the day his father told him that he was actually part mink; that his mother had died in childbirth, so before Florence could remember, his dad fell in love with a hedgehog and married her, and she was his mother. She still _was _his mother; she raised him and loved him as her own, even though she _knew _the baby wasn't hers.

When he was told the news, he felt confused and a little upset, but he still loved his mom and still called her mom… he knew why his dad did that: his dad wanted him to have a "normal" childhood, a childhood with a dad and a mom, and siblings.

Why couldn't Silver just realize that and come home?


	7. Mrs Phoenicia

There were two addresses for the Phoenicias: One was owned by a hedgehog named Hyperion and the other by an elderly hedgehog named Minerva. Hyperion was Selene's father, so Silver wrote down the first address and began to make his way into a very upper-class neighborhood, with gated fences and long winding driveways. The address was of a lot where a chateau stood, and the plate on the fence read PHOENICIA on it. He was at the right place.

He pressed the button on the gate's lock to ask to come in. He waited anxiously before a woman answered.

"Hello?"

"Hi, um..." What was he supposed to say? He couldn't very well show up if they- but surely they _did _know about the- "I'm looking for a Mr. Hyperion Phoenicia."

"He's not home at the moment... but would you like to come in?"

"Yes, please... I'd appreciate that." The message ended and the iron gate swung open. Silver made his way up the driveway. He glanced around cautiously and took out his contacts and took off his leather jacket. He didn't want to give his grandparents a scare with the Mercury get up.

He contemplated his situation as he knocked on the door. It swung open, revealing a middle-aged dark-orange hedgehog, who smiled politely.

"What can I do for you, young man?" she asked.

"I'm, uh, looking for some information about a girl named Selene." The woman's face flashed and her eyes darkened. "Do you know anything about her?"

"Why, yes," she said softly. "Selene was my daughter..My name is Theia, Hyperion's wife. Do come in...uh..."

"Mercury," Silver answered, stepping into the mansion. It was so elegant; the staircase and the chandelier and- "You have a lovely home, Mrs. Phoenicia."

"Thank you," she said, guiding him into the living room to the left. The sofa was patterned and soft while Theia took a seat in the armchair next to an expensive-looking end table. "You wanted to know about Selene?" she said, sounding a little bothered by the thought.

"Um, yes. I'm curious about the whole story. My uncle told me about the newsflash about the accident..." Theia's face darkened and lowered. "So I was wondering what'd happened to her."

The woman took awhile to answer him, holding her hands together and fiddling with them. "Selene... Selene was a twin of our daughter Aurora, a fraternal one. She was the runt, and she looked nothing like the rest of us." Silver's eyes fell on a portrait on the mantlepiece, and the gray distinction against the shades of orange and yellow of the rest of the family.

"Selene was also...um, clinically depressed and anxious," she went on, "and we were afraid it was because she was different. So we treated her like we treated Aurora, but... it didn't work out. She had already differed so much in her personality, and when her brother went off to college... She grew even more distant from us.

"But then... After her seventeenth birthday, she started to act more...happy. I was glad to see the change in mood; we all were. She was getting better." Better... But why so suddenly?

"Then... she wanted us to meet someone..." Silver's ears perked up intently. "Someone she'd met and seen for a while. A boy." His heart skipped a beat.

"But, Hyperion thought that she'd been... uh... _manipulated, _by this new friend. So he immediately shot her down, and..." Mrs. Phoenicia put her hands to her mouth and clamped her eyes shut, probably recalling the night.

"Selene snapped, violently. She screamed that we never loved her because she wasn't Aurora, that we could never love her for who she was and that we didn't want her to be happy, and that she was better off dead.." A tear streaked down her cheek. "And she ran up to her room and locked herself in there.

"I was scared that I was going to find my baby dead, that she killed herself,- but... even though there were her pills scattered all over the floor of her bathroom, she was gone. Utterly gone..."

Silver felt a pang, seeming to see Vienna in Theia's place, crying over him running off after that fight at the dinner table.

"You...you never saw her again, huh?"

"Not at all. Not until..." she broke out crying and Mercury brought over a box of tissues for Mrs. Phoenicia. He let her cry it out, heart throbbing as he watched his grandmother cry over his mother. Once she had calmed down, he asked about the strange boy.

"Do you think... that your daughter ran off with that boy?" he asked quietly.

The woman nodded and wiped her eyes. "I'm-uh-I'm certain she did... because... when they autopsied my little girl..._sniff-_they found out something that made them believe that she'd had a baby just minutes before she died."

"Did you ever find out who the father was? Or did they ever find the baby?"

"Oh, no, Mercury... They tried so hard for us. They searched everywhere for the baby, trying to find the father... but... but they didn't find a trace of either of them.

"Oh, God, I hope he loved her," she sobbed. "I hope he showed her she could be loved, and that her life _was _worth living..."

_Sure he did, _Mercury scoffed. Silver felt the bile in his mouth again, but tried to remain calm. "So... did your daughter have any close friends?"

Mrs. Phoenicia wiped her eyes and blinked back the last of her tears. "Hunh? Oh... Um, there was a girl... her name was Haku Furosuto. Her family's from Shima,"- an island country off the coast of this continent, but then she added, "they live on the other side of town. Mr. Furosuto hasn't told me much about what Haku's been up to lately..."

Once Mercury offered his condolences and received an address for the Furosuto's place, he left the grand chateau of the Phoenicias and began to work his way back into the city. He looked up at the sky, darkening and beginning to have little white dots inside of it. Pretty sky...

Mercury spat. _"Preetty sky?" What, are you still _five?! _*#%$&, you could at least make it sound a bit more mature than that, you stupid little %#$^%*$%._

Silver cringed, feeling the contents of his stomach being forced upwards, but he didn't vomit. Mercury... what was going on? He didn't even feel safe in his own mind anymore.

But it would be too late for a visit, he supposed, but as he headed towards the direction, he thought he saw something again.

Platinum white hair again, and fur, teetering onto metallic blue. Silver stopped for a bit, and tried to peer past the crowd's faces to see the two. He felt his heart lurch at her laughter, even though it sounded really weird to him, all slow, and why was her shape wobbling like that?

Black fur snapped him to look at the third figure, holding up a bottle. He was laughing with the girl too. But to his frustration, the group was swallowed up in the crowd.

* * *

"Whooo-_hoo!" _the platinum-white hedgehog hollered, leaning onto the android trying to keep both drunks balanced as he walked them home. "Woo... Oh, sorry, babe," to the android, "did I spit on you?"

"No, Haku," the Badnik informed, pulling the black hedgehog closer so his bottle wouldn't crack someone's head. "You're good. Just try not to fall, okay?"

"Oh, for #$%#*'s sake, Bolts," the other hedgehog coughed, "Lighten up! You're just _drunk _you can't get jealous like us, am I right? Heh-hehh..."

"Why on Mobius did _you_ start drinking, Stripes?" Bolts grumbled to his intoxicated friend.

"I'll tell you _why," _the hedgehog pointed and poked at the android. "'Cuz I've been fed up with the way I get _treated _like _#$%&# _for all my hard work! Fifty dollars for that piece my #$%#. #% $%#$&*. That #$&%^$ of a son, you said it yourself, Metal. That was a hundred dollar art of work!"

"Oh God, stop him now before he gets on his novels," Haku groaned, almost swaying into a short wall.

"My novels?" the hog sputtered. "Do you see the piles of #$&% they send me? Those #%$*&s keep rejecting 'em unopened like as soon as they look at the name they think it's crap! Conspiracy government, I think... They must've told 'em about me, and they think I'm some sort of criminal..."

"You'd think they'd forget about you," Bolts buzzed.

"You know... She really novelled my enjoys... God I miss that girl..."

"Easy, Stripes," Haku slurred. Even when she was under the influence, she knew that the member of the once Quartet was a touchy subject.

"No, no... It's okay," the hedgehog wheezed. "Ugh... Is it that time of year already, Bolts n' Booze?"

"Yes indeed," Bolts confirmed as his girl bobbed her head weakly.

"I must've #%$&ed like look before I got drunk, huh?" he chuckled awkwardly, knowing that after all this time there was no way to stop the weakening pain for good.

Booze raised her bottle in the air. "To Softee!" she toasted. Bolts and Stripes echoed her.

Before Stripes took his swig, he added, "And to Snowflakes!"


End file.
